Plans in place but not funds

Following the government announcements on planning, Christopher
Calcutt of FoxWood Maclean takes a look at how they may affect
future housing development.

The government’s new planning proposals have had a rough ride
over the past few months – and rightly so.

Early drafts were not promising and they threatened disjointed,
short-sighted and self-serving policies that may have put decisions
in the hands of disjointed organisations, short-sighted people and
self-serving business concerns.

But all is not yet crystal clear. The phrase “sustainable
development” seems to have caused confusion in many, including some
of the politicians and planners themselves. If it means we will now
build homes that people will be proud of in 50 years then that
sounds like good sustainability. But if it means homes of which we
will be so ashamed we will tear them down in several decades – as
we have with so many from the 1960s – then that, patently, is
unsustainable development.

The final draft, however, was met with guarded and grudging
approval – even from bodies such as the National Trust and Friends
of the Earth. The policy of brownfield first must be right. To make
use of urban regeneration while protecting our countryside wherever
and whenever possible still provides enormous opportunities for
much needed house-building.

Where rural development is considered, let us hope that planners
are mindful of their duty to our heritage. It is our children who
will have to live with their decisions, as we have had to live with
many poor decisions made by their predecessors. Bringing new life
into rural communities is important and modern technologies like
broadband can attract people who will live and work in a community
and not just sleep in it.

The government wants to concentrate more on reviving our
flagging town centres and less on out-of-town retail parks. They
could be too late for that. The public may have moved on a step or
two further than government thinking, as is sometimes the case.

So an enlightened vision on how we could bring mixed use to
struggling town centres, including residential development, may be
a way to move forward. But whatever the future brings, at least we
now have a planning policy that, broadly speaking, people can get
behind and which will enable planners to get planning and builders
to get building.

All we need now are the mortgages to help buy what is built. But
the government still hasn’t mentioned anything about that…